Middle of the Week Update: Another Dive into Digital Dystopia, a New to Me Classic, and More Trekkie Stitches

Posted on the 23 January 2013 by Crossstitchyourheart @TMNienaber

Good morning fellow stitchers, readers, and various other blog followers.  You know it’s going to be a good day when you wake up a half hour earlier than planned and the coffee tastes good.  I’m pretty proud of myself for keeping up the everyday posts for the last three weeks and I’m hoping to keep them up this year.  I feel like my blog has finally hit a good rhythm.  How are you all enjoying the new blog format and posts?  Judging by the feedback I’ve been getting I think things have been going well, but let me know if there’s something else you’d like to see.

As I patiently wait for my new floss to get here so I can start on my HAED pattern I’m working on a valentine’s day gift for my boyfriend.  He’s a trekkie of the first order (seriously, boy puts me to shame) so when I saw these patterns I knew I had to turn them into something for him and, being the person I am, decided to make him some bookmarks.

pattern was free via black-lupin at deviant art, here’s the linky: http://black-lupin.deviantart.com/gallery/

I decided to start with TOS as it is his favorite but black-lupin has patterns for TOS, TNG, as well as DS9 so you should go over there and check out what she has.

http://black-lupin.deviantart.com/gallery/ There’s that link again for the pattern

I still have to finish off the edges to keep the aida cloth from fraying but otherwise they’re finished.  I like little Kirk best so far.  These patterns each took a total of around 3 hrs to complete so they stitch very quickly and I was able to use leftover cloth and thread to make them so cost was low too.  I think they’ll make a great Valentine’s day gift, handmade, thoughtful, but inexpensive.  Feel free to steal the idea for yourself!  (As a side note, my dad noticed me making these and wanted some for himself so I have a Spock and a Khan in the making as well).

I also managed to finish the John Green book “The Fault in Our Stars” which is where all the quotes are coming from this week.   I enjoyed it, am very glad I read it, but I’m not sure it’s one of those books I’d want to read over and over and over again.  Still I think it’s a great book for teens and feel lucky to be able to teach it later on this spring.  For all of you John Green fans out there you also might like to know he’s doing a live chat today (Jan 23rd) on Goodreads so feel free to stop over there and check it out.

I also finished my second reviewer copy book of the year, Carpenter’s The Digital Sea.  The full review should be coming in the next couple of weeks.  I might push my full review of TFIOS back so I can get this one in sooner as I was asked to review it and want to get around to it quickly.  It’s another digital dystopia and bore a lot of striking similarities to the first reviewer copy I got this year, Rowark’s Story of the Snow Queen.  I guess there must be a lot of author’s thinking the same thing when it comes to technology.  How very Orwellian of us.

The book I’m working on now is another on my teacher-to-read list and is a book I probably should have read years ago, “The Catcher in the Rye”.  I’m not sure if I’ve read it before or not (I still feel like I should have) but I don’t remember it (at least beyond the fact Holden Caufield annoys me) so I figured I’d read for the first time (or re-read) just so it’s fresh in my mind before that whole, having to teach it to a class of 15 year olds thing happens.

So what are you all working on or reading this week?  I’d love to hear from you.  Any book recommendations you have to share or projects you’d like to see posted on borrowed inspiration Monday?  Just leave me a comment and let me know.  And once again thank you all for following the blog, leaving comments, and sharing the love!  If you’d like to keep tabs on me more than just once a day, don’t forget to follow the twitter @xstitchurheart.